Burned (16 page)

"Maybe,
maybe not. I'm building guesswork on top of supposition here, but I'm
doing it because I need you. The people we lost last time were on me.
Their deaths were my fault because I went ahead with the operation
despite knowing that we didn't have enough people to cover all of the
contingencies. I need you here because I don't want to repeat that
mistake.

"There
have been other…developments…since the last time I saw
you. I can keep my people safe from most of what I can see coming our
direction, but I need people I can trust to back me up in case I get
caught off guard again."

"You
almost had me." Grayson's voice was bitter. "You were doing
so well—right up until you said that. The whole point is that
you can't trust me. We're done here."

"I'm
offering you redemption! This is your chance. Maybe you won't earn it
this time, maybe you won't earn it next time, but eventually you're
going to be the deciding factor on one of the battles we're headed
into. Every time you save one of my people you're buying yourself
redemption. I'm the only one who can offer it to you, and this is the
only time I'm going to make the offer."

I couldn't have
said for sure where the words came from—they'd just felt
right—but they got through to Grayson at least enough to stop
him from hanging up on me. He wasn't saying anything, but I could
still hear him breathing on the other end of the line.

"Fine.
I'll be there in six hours."

"That's
not possible. I want you here, but I want you to travel safely—this
all falls apart if they track you here."

"They
won't track me. Our mutual acquaintance isn't the only one who can
call in favors. I'll be on a plane within the hour and nobody will
ever know I was on it. Text me the address where you want to meet."

I looked at the
phone for several seconds after he hung up.

"How did
you know that was going to work, Carson?"

"I didn't.
I wasn't sure it was possible, but you said exactly the right things
to him. You couldn't have done better if I'd coached you beforehand.
I'll text Grayson our location using a cypher that he's familiar
with. What do you want me to do after that?"

"Can you
please talk to all of the rest of our people and let them know that
they need to be ready to go at a moment's notice? I want people
sleeping in shifts, and I want them all well-rested."

"You're
not planning on leaving after your deadline to Jaclyn expires, are
you?"

"No, I'm
not. We aren't going to get a better chance than this, Carson. We may
not be able to convince Jaclyn that she's about to be attacked, but
we can make sure that we're near enough to hit the Coun'hij's forces
just minutes after they attack the Tucson pack. There's still no
guarantee that we'll be able to save any of her people, but we can
make sure that the Coun'hij loses every enforcer it sends after her.

"We're
going to lay a trap, and then once we've killed the Coun'hij, we're
going to send photos and video to every single pack in North America.
They all need to know that the Coun'hij isn't playing by its own
rules anymore, and they need to know that we're the ones who can save
them."

Carson nodded.
"I'll talk to our people, and then I'll go find Isaac and get
his buy-in as well. What are you going to be doing?"

I held up my
phone. "I'm going to be securing the other half of our trap."

I waited until
Carson was gone and then activated two more privacy boxes before
dialing Shawn's latest number.

"Is this
the friend who threatened to rip down my door?"

"Yes—you
should get your electrical system re-inspected so that our next
meeting doesn't have to be so adversarial."

Now that we
both knew who we were dealing with despite the masking programs
running on our phones, Shawn laughed.

"I'd say
it's good to hear your voice, but under the circumstances that's
neither accurate nor appropriate. How are things going down there?"

"We talked
to the target. Nobody saw us arrive or leave, so if there's a leak it
has to come from her or her daughter. She doesn't believe that the
threat I told her about is real. What can you do to send your
evidence her way?"

Shawn was
silent for several seconds. "There are a number of things I
could do, but my dad isn't going to agree to any of them. It was all
I could do to get him to agree to come out into the open with you.
He's never going to agree to blow our cover with our friend from the
border."

I smiled, a
cold, humorless expression, because I knew it would help the emotions
behind it make it into my voice even despite the masking.

"I came
down here on nothing more than faith. I want to trust you, but you've
played your hand as far as it can go without you putting more skin in
the game. You say you want to help, but so far all you've done is
send me and my people into what could be a gigantic trap. You're
going to have to do better than that. Either get that intelligence
over to our favorite headstrong female, or give me another sign of
your commitment to the cause."

Shawn was slow
to respond, but even so I could tell by his voice that he wasn't
surprised by my demand. "What did you have in mind?"

"I want
more bodies down here, but I don't want just any bodies. You said
that your dad's best people all report directly to you. Send them—the
best of them—down here where they can help out if we run into a
group that I can't deal with by myself."

"Okay,
it's a deal. I'll have eight of them down there before tomorrow
morning. Believe it or not, I was actually considering suggesting
something like that to you already. We're getting reports
of…hoover…activity down there."

Hoover was code
for vacuum, which was what we shape shifters called werewolves. Shawn
sounded like he thought the negotiations were all over, and we were
headed into the closing pleasantries, but I wasn't done.

"I want
your bodyguard on that plane. She comes too, or the deal is off."

"I can't
do that. My father will never agree to leaving me uncovered."

"Then
don't ask him."

I'd nearly
decided that Shawn wasn't going to go for it when he finally
responded.

"How did
you find out? We've done everything conceivable to keep her ability a
secret."

"Call it a
hunch. The first time we met she reacted even before the lights went
out. Add in the fact that your dad wouldn't let anyone but the best
serve as your bodyguard, and it was obvious she had to be exceptional
in some form or fashion."

"She's not
your equal. She can't wipe out dozens of people all at once."

"That's
okay, I've got plenty of those kinds of weapons. I need something
that can go toe-to-toe with any one single foe and come out on top."

"She's
your girl then. She'll be on the plane—just know that my dad is
going to make things unpleasant for you at some point down the road
as a result."

"I'd
expect nothing less."

I hung up on
Shawn and turned to go back outside, but a knock on the door pulled
me up short before I could take more than a step or two.

Adri looked up
at me as the door opened, and I was suddenly incredibly grateful that
this meeting wasn't happening inside of a dream. I could smell her
here, could hear her heart racing. There was still no guarantee, but
out here I at least had a chance of getting through to her—assuming
I still wanted to.

I examined my
feelings as she climbed up the stairs, and found that I still wanted
to patch things up between us. More than just me, my beast seemed to
want it too. With anyone else who had caused us so much grief he
would have been a growling, crackling ball of anger, but he was
remarkably quiet right then.

"I can
come back if this is a bad time…"

"No, your
timing is fine. I just finished the two most important calls that I'm
going to make all week. I was just headed back outside to check on my
people, but it's nothing that Carson can't take care of."

She nodded
hesitantly, as though unsure if she was happy that I had time to talk
rather than just brushing her off. I could feel her nervousness,
smell her worry. I wanted to reach out to her, but I didn't know what
to say, didn't know what might save her or what might set her off.

"They went
well? Your calls, I mean."

"Yes. The
first one got me exactly what I wanted, without any subterfuge. The
second one required asking for something I knew I wouldn't get in
order to get what I actually wanted, but in the end I got the
assistance we need, and the other party seems happy still."

"Is it
hard to play those kinds of games?"

I nodded. "I'd
give a lot not to have to play them, but right now it's the only way
to get us what we need. There are dozens of packs scattered all
across North America, and all of them are scared of the Coun'hij, all
of them are worried about making the wrong call and giving up their
power to someone who will get their people killed. I have no choice
but to unite them in any way possible. Maybe once the Coun'hij is
gone there will be a chance to destroy the old order and create
something that has a chance of letting us trust each other. Right now
everyone is too scared."

"You seem
awfully sure of that."

"I am. I
know that they are scared because I'm scared. Being a hybrid—being
an alpha—doesn't mean that you're not scared, it just means
that you have to find a way to function around the fear."

"What are
you scared of, Alec?"

"I'm
scared of letting everyone down. I'm scared of making the wrong
decision and putting us in a position where even my power isn't
strong enough to get us out alive. I worry that this fight is one
that we can't win, and most of all, I worry that I'll end up becoming
my father."

She shook her
head. "That's not possible. From everything I've seen, you're
nothing like your dad."

I shrugged.
"From what people have told me, my dad didn't used to be like
this. There's no way of telling what will happen to me with the
passage of enough time."

"It's not
going to happen, Alec. You're too good for that."

She was
becoming a better liar than the girl I remembered from my dreams, the
girl who had come to me wondering whether it would be safe to trust
Dream Stealer with the secret of her identity. If she'd been dealing
with someone else she probably could have gotten away with her most
recent lie, but I could hear the falsehood in a dozen different ways.

"Once upon
a time I think you probably believed that, Adri. You're not so sure
now, are you?"

For a moment I
thought that I'd gone too far. She looked up at me with anger
flashing in her eyes, but somehow she brought it back under control.

"You're
right. I'm not as sure as I was once upon a time. I saw you do things
to your father that I never expected out of you. The guy I met so
many weeks ago couldn't have tortured anyone—not even a monster
like Kaleb."

Part of me
wanted to respond with anger. My beast even seemed to be waking up
and getting into the game, but I clamped down on him and forced my
voice to remain even.

"I did
what had to be done, Adri. I didn't enjoy it, and I would have gladly
taken another course if I thought one existed, but I didn't see any
other way, so I took the only route that offered me a chance to keep
my people safe."

"I'm not
questioning your intentions, Alec, just the results."

We weren't just
talking about me torturing Kaleb anymore, this was about her parents.

"I'm sorry
for how things turned out with your parents, Adri. I've thought about
every single choice I made that day. I've reviewed each of them at
least a hundred times, and there are a host of things that I would have
done differently in hindsight.

"If I'd
known that my power was going to fully manifest that day, I would
have taken one or two wolves to watch my back and gone in after your
parents while you and everyone else went after Cindi. I could have
stopped that vampire from ever raising that piece of machinery above
your mom and dad's heads, and you guys would have outnumbered the bad
guys holding Cindi by such a big margin that you would have easily
been able to free her.

"If I'd
known exactly what we were up against—and known that I could
easily neutralize the biggest threat—then everything would have
been straightforward, but I didn't and it wasn't. I don't know what
to say or do to make things better between us."

I'd been able
to smell Adri's mounting distress as I'd been talking, but I was
still surprised to find tears running down her face. Somehow my
mental picture of Adri didn't include someone who could cry silently
like that. To me she'd always been the tough-as-nails fighter who'd
saved me from Brandon.

"I know
that there isn't anything you could have done differently, Alec. You
didn't know that we were up against two of the most powerful vampires
that any of your people ever remember hearing about. You didn't know
that we were going to be frozen in place by her powers, helpless as
she started executing us, and you didn't know when you came through
that door and neutralized her power that she had twenty tons of
machinery dangling above my parents.

"You saved
Cindi, which is more than I had any right to expect, and you saved
the rest of us. Nobody else in the world could have managed even one
of those feats, and the really amazing part is that you were willing
to sacrifice your life to make that happen."

I opened my
mouth to tell her that she didn't have to thank me again, but she
talked over the top of me.

"I'm
grateful for what you did, Alec, but you had no right to keep me in
the dark like that. If you wanted to offer to risk your life in a
single-handed rescue attempt that would have been fine, but you were
supposed to offer instead of just making the decision for me.